WOW…well over a month since I posted to my blog! I guess another apology is in order…this time for human error rather than technical difficulties! It’s kind of like the cobbler’s kid having no shoes; a writer never gets time to write her own “stuff” when she’s busy writing everyone else’s!

For those of you who don’t communicate with me personally on a daily or weekly basis, an update is in order. I’m not sure I had shared in my blog what “therapy” I had been doing very soon after my diagnosis, aside from drastically changing my eating habits, resting more, and lowering my stress. I had been following a protocol researched and discovered by a German doctor way back when, Dr. Budwig, who actually was nominated for seven Nobel Prizes for her research. She found that a mixture of flax seed oil and cottage cheese taken daily had a certain effect on the outer “shell” of cancer cells, which left them vulnerable and able to be destroyed by a healthy immune system.

It seemed easy enough, although I did resort to making it into a smoothie with frozen berries and some almond milk each morning. While I did that, I continued to read and research and found something that I found more interesting and (hopefully) a little more promising. It is a product called Protocel, which was developed decades ago and thwarted by the FDA and others over the years. So now it is sold online as simply a health supplement. It’s taken five times a day (which can be a bit challenging), and more than six hours cannot lapse between doses. The great thing about this “treatment” is that I can be a little more lax on my diet, i.e. I can eat a little meat, such as chicken. I can also have honey and pure maple syrup, and a moderate amount of whole grain carbs. The other stipulations have to do with avoiding certain supplements (high doses of Vitamin C and E, as well as COQ10, which I had been taking) and other alternative treatments.

In addition, I’m taking ellagic acid (raspberry seed extract) twice a day. This is one of the alternative treatments that doesn’t interfere with the effectiveness of the Protocel.

Without getting into any long explanations, Protocel literally attacks the cells themselves and “kills” them; and your body eliminates the dead cells through a process called “lysing”. This elimination can happen in many ways…runny nose, “crusty” eyes, daily body “functions”, etc. Tiredness in the first few weeks is about the only side effect. I’ll take that over hair loss, nausea, and the decimation of my immune system any day!

Oh yes, I also went to see an oncologist finally. It wasn’t a horrible visit overall, and I did learn a couple good facts regarding my biopsy that I hadn’t been told before. I learned my cells are estrogen receptive, which means estrogen feeds them, so I won’t be doing any bio-identical hormone replacement anytime soon. I also learned that they measure the “proliferation rate” of the cells and found 67% of mine were not prone to “proliferate” and only 23% were, which I think is pretty good odds. With what I’m doing right now, I’m thinking I can control that 23% and, in the end, get rid of all of them!

Of course, she encouraged me to do the standard of care treatment (chemo, surgery, radiation), to which I again said “NO!” In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, she told me they would first want me to do a short round of chemo BEFORE the surgery, which made absolutely no sense to me! Why do something that is going to destroy my immune system, then do surgery on diseased cells that will probably be released into my system elsewhere, into an immune system that has been compromised by previously ingested poison! It seems just so ludicrous! I was also asked what is in the Protocel. When I couldn’t tell her the ingredients, she told me I should at least know what was in it if I was going to be taking it. Later, reviewing the conversation at home, I thought, “I wouldn’t know what is in the chemotherapy drugs, but you’d expect me to take them!!!” At least I know I can take Protocel every day for years, and it won’t kill me!

So that’s my update! I’m feeling good, except for needing naps regularly; and I get kind of bored with my current meal plan. Much of that is my fault for being too lazy to prepare different recipes. It’s just easier to reach in and grab the organic greens/spinach, organic broccoli, bell pepper, celery, etc. and throw my homemade salad dressing on it! Bon appétit!

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I think part of my problem has to be brain overload.  I’m reading soooooooooooooooooooo much about treating cancer the natural way that some days I feel as though my head is going to explode!  It makes me obsessive at times now.  For instance…my lack of sleep…does not give my body the amount of time it needs to regenerate and get rejuvenated!  If I take naps later today, will that make up for at least part of my lack of sleep tonight?

Do people who are diagnosed with other life threatening diseases obsess over every little choice they make?  No sugar anymore…but is a tablespoon of honey in my green tea okay?  Limited carbs…but is my occasional whole grain baguette with my soup at Bread Co okay?  What if I eat an occasional homemade potato chip in a restaurant?  Am I eating enough “green stuff” each day?  Not eating meat…but damn…someone just told me shellfish are bad.  Alkaline water is preferable and so is organic everything!  No more regular milk or soy…almond milk, instead!  Thank God berries are highly recommended…but what if I can’t find organic ones???  Sheesh!

Of course, all the obsessing is definitely worth the outcome, which I’m feeling extremely positive about every day!  Besides, I can now fit into some capris that I haven’t worn in at least three or four years, so I guess I won’t complain too much!   LOL….

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That “revelation” should also be carried over to our internal “looks”.  We all (or most of us) start with the same parts:  heart, lungs, liver, brain, intestines, cells, etc.; however, the lives we lead soon make all of us so different on the inside.  Yet the traditional medical community wants to treat those of us diagnosed with cancer as identical!  They recommend a “standard of care” treatment that generally follows a daunting route…surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.  In the traditional medical community, the faster they can get you under the knife and start introducing radiation and chemicals into your body, the faster they can “cure” you (or so they want you to believe).  Worse, if your cancer is in an advanced stage, they make the horrifying mistake of actually giving you a death sentence, turning off your brain to optimistic possibilities, and squashing what little hope you may be trying to cling to in order to get through treatment and RECOVER!!!

As I mentioned a couple of  weeks ago, I am doing a lot of reading about cancer…which I will be sharing in upcoming posts…but two of the most important things I’ve learned in the past two months are:

• People should be made aware that they have OPTIONS!  If someone (a surgeon or oncologist) tells you you have to have surgery, radiation, and/or chemotherapy, you need to understand that those are not your only options!  I’m not here to tell anyone what to do or that they should ignore the recommendations of their doctors…if they feel that is best for them and feel confident that the recommended treatment will make them better.  What I am saying is that you should “Take a deep breath” (which is what my very good friend, Linda, told me immediately after my diagnosis).  Do at least a little bit of research and reading, if only to find out how to make yourself the strongest you can be in order to come through surgery with the best odds of surviving without a recurrence or how to tolerate the chemicals you may be given.  YOU HAVE OPTIONS…AND IT’S IMPORTANT THAT YOU KNOW THIS!!

• No two people are alike.  Now, as you can tell from my story at the beginning of this post, I had already “discovered” this some time ago; but I’d never really considered it regarding my internal problems until my diagnosis.  NO TWO PEOPLE ARE ALIKE INTERNALLY, AND THIS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED WHEN TREATING CANCER. Although there are some things that all people who are diagnosed with cancer should do (which I will talk about at a later time), there are many things that should be assessed individually.  “Cookie cutter” treatment (surgery, radiation, chemotherapy) is not a good “standard of care”.

In upcoming posts, I will share a lot of what I’m learning in my attempt to “thrive to 105“!  I am confident that this little “blip on the radar screen” is not going to set me back or prevent me from getting there.  In fact, it may actually have been something I needed in order to assure I reach my goal!

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In their book called, Getting Well Again, Carl and Stephanie Simonton outline their research and an actual six-week program for helping those who are sick to use their minds as an aid to their healing process.  It’s a “step-by-step, self-help guide to overcoming cancer for patients and their families”.  Carl is an oncologist; Stephanie a psychiatrist…a powerful combination for the kind of work they’ve been doing for over three decades!

Part One of the book is titled:  The Mind and Cancer.  The first chapter is: The Mind-Body Connection; A Psychological Approach to Cancer Treatment.  It starts out dealing with the will to live, talks about the “whole-person approach” to treating cancer and discusses putting theory into practice.  My big takeaway from this chapter was:

It is our central premise that an illness is not purely a physical problem, but rather a problem of the whole person, that it includes not only body but mind and emotions.  We believe that emotional and mental states play a significant role both in susceptibility to disease, including cancer, and in recovery from all disease.  We believe that cancer is often an indication of problems elsewhere in an individual’s life, problems aggravated or compounded by a series of stresses six to eighteen months prior to the onset of cancer.  The cancer patient has typically responded to these problems and stresses with a deep sense of hopelessness, or “giving up”.  This emotional response, we believe, in turn triggers a set of physiological responses that suppress the body’s natural defenses and make it susceptible to producing abnormal cells.

WOW! As so many who are diagnosed with cancer must feel, I wondered “why” and “how” when I first heard the ‘c’ word.  But it made a lot of sense after reading the very detailed explanation in this book.  Eighteen months prior to my diagnosis (or possibly 24) I had the whole laundry list of events in my life that cause the most stress: I moved, I got married, I lost my job, my stepmom died, my relationships with the people I loved were strained, I got divorced.  At times I did feel a sense of hopelessness.  It makes so much more sense now.

Now understanding how the cells can become “abnormal”, it isn’t a hard segue to start wondering if it isn’t possible…with the right kind of physical and mental forces applied…to transform them into “normal” cells again.

We shall see!

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